Megaray, Yeah baby, with a Price tag of $6800 is so out of reach of common flasholics. It appears that there's only one guy on the Entire CPF that bought one.
Quite a few years back, there was a shootout by CPF' old timer kenshiro, where the Megaray, a 125W Short Arc was crowned the king despite the Maxa Beam was the longest thrower in the group. Some CPFers considered the Magaray
to be the Holy Grill of portable production searchlight system. http://home.earthlink.net/~kenshiro2/superlights/superlights.html
Reading the MegaRay website, I couldnt stop drooling, I realized that it differs from MaxaBeam in principle is build on reverse Galilean Telescope Principle with a combination of reflector a big 4-5 lens. See their site for details.
http://home.earthlink.net/~kenshiro2/superlights/superlights.html
I had to do it, that is If I can't afford the grill, at least I can beat the grill!
My goal is simple:
To build a short arc Megaray style, a two piece system with the light battery system as two separate pieces and:
.
I named it the Mega Blaster, drawing inspiration from MegaRay as well as Ra's legendary Maxa Blaster.
I'll go through the Build Process in several sections below:
1. The Lamp
The Lamp of choice is: Osram P-VIP High Pressure Mercury Short-arc 120W/1.0 lamp. According this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...Idea-Revisited
This lamp has a nominal luminance of 200,000 cd/cm^2, higher surface brightness than Ra's legendary MaxaBlaster (170,000 cd/cm^2).
This is how the MegaRay mounted the lamp:
This is how I mounted the lamp:
Both lamp have built in reflector are similar in size, but the specs are way different. The MegaRay has increased out put from 125W to 175, the following spec comp. are based on the 175W model.
................................Megaray Lamp....................MegaBlaster lamp
lamp Type..................Short Arc.............................Short Arc
Gas Type...................High Pressure Xenon..............High Pressure Mercury
Arc gap.......................0.8-0.9mm..........................1mm
Power.........................175W................ ..................120W
Lumens.......................2700................. ..................7000
Mfg............................Perkin Elmer..........................Osram
Model#.......................???.................. ....................P-VIP 120W/1.0
As you can see, at twice amount of lumen out put with Arc gap nearly identical, the Mega Blaster lamp has about two times the surface brightness over the lamp used in 175W MegaRay.
The Lens System:
MegaRay: All I could find out is that MegaRay has a front lens somewhere between 4-5 inches diameter.
Mega Blaster: 4.5 Two Piece Optically fused high precision Aspheric lens, AR coated. The same lens system previously used in the led Torpedo here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?298347-Franken-Mag-5-The-325K-lux-LED-Torpedo-amp-fun-with-Maxa-Beam
Front view of the lens vs. Maxa Beam reflector vs Mag for size comp.
The Ballast:
P-VIP ballast is from a working DLP projector, with modification to Trick the ballast to turn on w/o factory lamp-on signal. There are two other guys did this before me, both were non regular on CPF, lots of smart people out side of CPF. I wish they could have been around longer. W/o their posts, I would not have had the electronic know hows or the balls to butcher a working DLP projector to harvest the ballast.
The first Guy:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...o-120-Watt-UHP
The second Guy:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...rojector-parts
Part of the DLP projector's Magnesium Body was cut by table saw with curves to flow around the
BFL lens system mounted to the under side of the BFL system as ballast holder stand.
The powerful factory lamp cooling fan was also transplanted over from the DLP projector.
Because, Active Cooling is required for the lamp ballast!
I love the look, it remind me of the Submarine
The Portable AC 110 + DC 12V Power Supply:
The light need two power sources: 110AC for the lamp ballast and 12V DC for the fan.
This is my original vision of build a power supply out of my car's Jump Starter.
After taking it apart, I was having a hard time with the space available to
house 12AH LiFepo4 200W constant/400W Peak DC-AC Converter.
However, while looking for compact Converters, I cam across this Portable AC/DC power supply that is cheaper than what I could build one my self:
Schumacher Portable 400W Inverter DC/AC Power Source $70/ebay. Bravo, problem solved the easy way.
Here are a few more photos: Mega Blaster vs. Maxa Beam
Beam shots against Maxa Beam
While my 400W portable AC power is on order, I can't take it out side yet.
But I can take some indoor shots. From one end of my house to the other
side wall, is 36ft. The two lights were about 1-2ft against wall, thus 34ft or so to the beam spots:
The Maxa Beam (Right) is set highest intensity spot focus, Max 75W Burst mode
The Maxa Beam was literally annihilated by the Mega Blaster (Left)
My Son walked pass the beam about 15ft away from the light while it was on, he said he felt the heat coming out front the beam, this thing is insane.
Quite a few years back, there was a shootout by CPF' old timer kenshiro, where the Megaray, a 125W Short Arc was crowned the king despite the Maxa Beam was the longest thrower in the group. Some CPFers considered the Magaray
to be the Holy Grill of portable production searchlight system. http://home.earthlink.net/~kenshiro2/superlights/superlights.html
Reading the MegaRay website, I couldnt stop drooling, I realized that it differs from MaxaBeam in principle is build on reverse Galilean Telescope Principle with a combination of reflector a big 4-5 lens. See their site for details.
http://home.earthlink.net/~kenshiro2/superlights/superlights.html
I had to do it, that is If I can't afford the grill, at least I can beat the grill!
My goal is simple:
To build a short arc Megaray style, a two piece system with the light battery system as two separate pieces and:
- Beat MegaRay in Throw
- Beat MegaRay in Total Lumen out put
- Beat MegaRay in portability
. I named it the Mega Blaster, drawing inspiration from MegaRay as well as Ra's legendary Maxa Blaster.
I'll go through the Build Process in several sections below:
1. The Lamp
The Lamp of choice is: Osram P-VIP High Pressure Mercury Short-arc 120W/1.0 lamp. According this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...Idea-Revisited
This lamp has a nominal luminance of 200,000 cd/cm^2, higher surface brightness than Ra's legendary MaxaBlaster (170,000 cd/cm^2).
This is how the MegaRay mounted the lamp:
This is how I mounted the lamp:
Both lamp have built in reflector are similar in size, but the specs are way different. The MegaRay has increased out put from 125W to 175, the following spec comp. are based on the 175W model.
................................Megaray Lamp....................MegaBlaster lamp
lamp Type..................Short Arc.............................Short Arc
Gas Type...................High Pressure Xenon..............High Pressure Mercury
Arc gap.......................0.8-0.9mm..........................1mm
Power.........................175W................ ..................120W
Lumens.......................2700................. ..................7000
Mfg............................Perkin Elmer..........................Osram
Model#.......................???.................. ....................P-VIP 120W/1.0
As you can see, at twice amount of lumen out put with Arc gap nearly identical, the Mega Blaster lamp has about two times the surface brightness over the lamp used in 175W MegaRay.
The Lens System:
MegaRay: All I could find out is that MegaRay has a front lens somewhere between 4-5 inches diameter.
Mega Blaster: 4.5 Two Piece Optically fused high precision Aspheric lens, AR coated. The same lens system previously used in the led Torpedo here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?298347-Franken-Mag-5-The-325K-lux-LED-Torpedo-amp-fun-with-Maxa-Beam
Front view of the lens vs. Maxa Beam reflector vs Mag for size comp.
The Ballast:
P-VIP ballast is from a working DLP projector, with modification to Trick the ballast to turn on w/o factory lamp-on signal. There are two other guys did this before me, both were non regular on CPF, lots of smart people out side of CPF. I wish they could have been around longer. W/o their posts, I would not have had the electronic know hows or the balls to butcher a working DLP projector to harvest the ballast.
The first Guy:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...o-120-Watt-UHP
The second Guy:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...rojector-parts
Part of the DLP projector's Magnesium Body was cut by table saw with curves to flow around the
BFL lens system mounted to the under side of the BFL system as ballast holder stand.
The powerful factory lamp cooling fan was also transplanted over from the DLP projector.
Because, Active Cooling is required for the lamp ballast!
I love the look, it remind me of the Submarine
The Portable AC 110 + DC 12V Power Supply:
The light need two power sources: 110AC for the lamp ballast and 12V DC for the fan.
This is my original vision of build a power supply out of my car's Jump Starter.
After taking it apart, I was having a hard time with the space available to
house 12AH LiFepo4 200W constant/400W Peak DC-AC Converter.
However, while looking for compact Converters, I cam across this Portable AC/DC power supply that is cheaper than what I could build one my self:
Schumacher Portable 400W Inverter DC/AC Power Source $70/ebay. Bravo, problem solved the easy way.
Here are a few more photos: Mega Blaster vs. Maxa Beam
Beam shots against Maxa Beam
While my 400W portable AC power is on order, I can't take it out side yet.
But I can take some indoor shots. From one end of my house to the other
side wall, is 36ft. The two lights were about 1-2ft against wall, thus 34ft or so to the beam spots:
The Maxa Beam (Right) is set highest intensity spot focus, Max 75W Burst mode
The Maxa Beam was literally annihilated by the Mega Blaster (Left)
My Son walked pass the beam about 15ft away from the light while it was on, he said he felt the heat coming out front the beam
, this thing is insane.
state unfortunately.
. ma_sha1 what kind of SLA's did that AC inverter use? If only I could give you one of mine, Im in MA, not that far of a drive right
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